ENPAC Group featured in Wholesale Distribution International

ENPAC Group

Written by Article by Jim Harris

The ENPAC Group’s industrial distributor customers look to it to provide high-quality products that not only meet their own high standards, but also those of the hundreds of companies around the world that ultimately use the products. “Our distributors expect product quality, but they define overall quality based on service,” says Brian Walters, vice president of sales and marketing for the Eastlake, Ohio-based manufacturing holding company. “Our distributors are pushing us to ship things faster and hit their shipping targets on time every time.”

To meet its distributors’ demands, ENPAC Group is investing in technologies and processes that unite the four companies it owns and operates. Each of the companies operates as its own individual business, but all share a universal enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that allows them to more efficiently communicate with distributors as well as each other, notes Alec Janda, account manager.

ENPAC Group uses a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to handle its less-than-truckload shipments, and uses common carriers such as UPS and FedEx for small packages. “We have seen an increase in transportation costs in recent years, so when we engineer a new product we think of how it is packaged and how it will fit in a container,” explains Pat Gothro, vice president of business development. “We engineer ways to make our products fit most efficiently into a package to lower the delivered costs for distributors.”

One of the group’s companies, ENPAC LLC, recently redesigned its two-drum spill-containment pallet product. The older version of the pallet could only be stacked in trucks one on top of the other in a maximum stack of six, while the new pallets can be nested inside of each other in a maximum stack of 22. “The emphasis we’re placing on shipping density and packaging efficiencies will continue to grow,” Walters notes.

ENPAC Group’s companies manufacture on a just-in-time basis at the manufacturing facilities for large truckload orders, but maintain stock at eight warehouses in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, South Africa, and the Middle East to meet global demand.

‘BREADTH AND DEPTH’

ENPAC Group is comprised of:

ENPAC LLC, a market leader in spill prevention, containment and control products serving industries including oil and gas, manufacturing, construction, transportation, aerospace and the military;

PolyFlex LLC, a manufacturer of flexible and portable spill-containment products made of industrial fabrics;

Black Diamond ECO Solutions LLC, formed in 2013 after 2-plus years of in-depth market research. The company offers two product lines: a spill control and containment line and a rainwater catchment line;

Phoenix Associates, an ISO 9000-certified die-cutting company providing custom gaskets and seals to customers in the electronics, aerospace, military, air filtration, automotive parts, marine seals and natural gas industries.

The ability for ENPAC’s Group of companies to manufacture their own products is one of the group’s biggest strengths. “We have the largest product line with the most breadth and depth,” Walters adds, noting that ENPAC LLC alone has a line of more than 800 products. “Many of our competitors do not make their own products; they may own the mold, but often give that mold to a third party to manufacture the product. We perform our own manufacturing and molding, and we have the ability to handle quality control standards unsurpassed in our industry.”

Many of the products manufactured by ENPAC’s companies are required by federal regulations. “We have five full-time engineers, which gives [us] the ability to constantly work on new products while testing and updating our current products,” he says. “We want to be able to introduce more products faster than anyone else and stay ahead of what the market needs.”

Walters credits ENPAC Group’s hard-working personnel with much of its success. The company supports employee development in a variety of ways, including a cross-training initiative that incentivizes employees to learn new job functions and more about the overall business. “We have great people here, and we believe in investing in them,” Walters says.

This article can be found on the Wholesale Distribution International Website at:

https://www.bestsupplychainpractices.com/2014/09/enpac-group/

or on Page 62 of the Wholesale Distribution International Magazine.